New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live



The lich quickly understood what Chronos was doing when one of his undead servants was suddenly plucked from his control.

On the other end of this battlefield, Chronos looked at the golden string in between his fingers, which he had just reached through the ever-stretching web of time, and smirked.

"No one escapes time. Not even death…" he muttered.

Snapping his fingers, the thread snapped, and the undead dropped to the ground, turning to dust. But this process would be a lot slower than stopping their timelines.

Chronos had to wrest control over the time thread from the lich, and he could only reach them through the time web since he could hardly waltz into combat and grab at the strings directly.

This made the process longer and harder. But not impossible.

Astaroth, with his senses still firing on all cylinders, noticed the mana presence of an undead vanish close to him, and he turned in half panic, expecting a sneak attack. But when he saw the undead turn to ash, he frowned.

'What the fuck just happened?' he wondered.

He didn't have enough time to stop and observe the surrounding battlefield, so he remained puzzled for a while. Until another one suffered the same fate.

Seeing the undead jerk, Astaroth lunged at him, thinking he could get an attack on it, but it turned to dust as he kicked through it, hitting nothing.

But he saw in the distance, some of the undead turning around to face the fey man in his party. He quickly did the math.

"Luna! Protect Chronos! Whatever he's doing, it's pissed off the boss!"

Right as he said that, a dark swirl of mist opened next to Chronos, and out of it came floating the figure from the throne.

From up close, the lich looked much more impressive, its ten feet high body towering over the smaller fey man, who looked up at him with a hint of fear.

In its husky voice, almost like an echo through a ragged canyon, the lich spoke.

"How dare you steal away from me the fate of those souls? They are mine. Mine!"

The last word came out as a shrill shout, the air around Chronos shuddering under the magic pressure it contained. But he looked mostly unfazed.

"You don't get to pluck threads out of the web of time freely, aberration of death. The web requires justice be rendered."

The lich made one mistake by getting this close to Chronos. And the latter was so immersed in the time web that it ordered him to pounce.

Reaching out his hand, Chronos grasped at the clump of threads attached to the lich's soul. Feeling this happen, the Lich reeled.

Screeching loudly, it shoved its hand forward, trying to plunge it into this impudent mortal who was trying to steal from him.

But just before the hand reached Chronos' chest, Luna came flying in, ramming the undead with her immense body. But she didn't feel any impact.

The lich had thrown up a shield in between them at the last second, and it absorbed the impact, leaving him unscathed.

But now, it was angry.

Screeching out in fury, making the players' ears almost bleed, the lich called all its remaining servants to its side. Luna huffed in response, raking her hooves in the dark dirt.

Around Astaroth, the undead all turned their heads away from him, ready to respond to their master's call. But he wasn't letting them leave him without paying a heavy cost.

"Turn away from me, and pay the price!" he shouted.

Transforming his Ad Astra into a pair of daggers, Astaroth went into a frenzy, stabbing heads, severing necks, and smashing bones. He used Sublimation, to boost his stats by double, still unsure he should use more demonic powers in this darkness-infested place.

And this alone was enough to make the newer players in his party understand why he stood at the top of the power structure of the guild.

Jaxx swallowed nervously, realizing he had been looking down on him until now, thinking Astaroth had gotten his rank through money, or connections. But now, his eyes opened to the truth.

His guild leader was a monster.

Jaxx's level was forty-five, and this alone should make him close to Astaroth in power. But he could barely follow the speed at which Astaroth was moving, and the damage numbers he was doing were not something he could accomplish without using powerful skills.

Of course, the equipment on Astaroth might be better than his, but it still wouldn't make this stark of a difference. This was raw power.

His earlier move had made him realize he wasn't a pushover. But now that he saw, Astaroth could crush him under his boot, like a bug, if he so wished.

While Jaxx looked away at Astaroth, his mind stuck in contemplation, he failed to notice a zombie lunge at him, mouth opened, ready to gnaw at his throat.

"Hey! Keep your head in the game, bro!" Meat-Shield exclaimed, intercepting the foe.

Jaxx snapped out of it, realizing the undead that had been ganging up on Astaroth were now running at them. Or, more specifically, at Chronos, who stood in the center of them.

He slapped his cheeks, regaining his focus.

'Come one, Jaxx. Get yourself together! You can still prove your worth!'

Although he doubted he could erase the stain of his previous behaviour. From his arrogance with Violette, his cowardice earlier, and now to his lack of focus in a dungeon run.

He had a feeling he was only digging himself deeper since they entered the dungeon. He needed to make himself invaluable.

Jaxx wasn't inherently a bad person. But since playing New Eden, and realizing he could be powerful here, he had changed a bit.

Jeanne knew him enough to know that her brother was usually the one who lacked power. He often got bullied as a kid, since he was smaller than the other guys.

This had led him to build up his body, thinking it would give him confidence. But it had only helped him not get picked on any longer.

But when they started playing New Eden, and he started using this newfound strength to push around smaller players, he had become prideful, arrogant and conceited.

She only wished it would stop getting worse before it affected him outside the game as well.

And this had only become worse when he found an A-grade legacy, which he still hadn't told the guild about.

'Come on, brother. Get back to your old self. No one likes you like this…' she thought, a bit of regret in her mind.

She had brought him into the game. And now she was regretting it.